Voice of Ogoni radio was launched on the anniversary of the hanging of Ken Saro-Wiwa and other Ogoni martyrs in November, 2009. The unlicensed station broadcast for a few months before the pressure from the Rivers state government and Nigerian military became too much for the clandestine operators and they were forced to hide the transmission equipment.
Nigeria is the only country in West Africa that continues to deny communities the right to the FM airwaves, forcing those who want or need their voices heard to resort to transmitting without a license.
On June 12th, Goteh Keenam and Dambani Kuenu, two young Ogoni men from Zor-Sogho community in Rivers state, Nigeria were shot dead by policemen. The two were protesting ongoing attempts by the State government to smuggle the Bori Camp Military Barracks, which houses the Second Amphibious Brigade in Port Harcourt into Ogoni territory.
In September 2009 residents of the Abonnema Wharf neighborhood and concerned activists gathered to protest ongoing government demolitions and forced evictions in the Port Harcourt waterfronts
On May 26, 2009, oil company Royal Dutch Shell (Shell) will stand trial in federal court in New York for complicity in egregious human rights abuses in Nigeria.
Based in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria, the Media Awareness and Justice Initiative works with groups and social movements working together for social, economic, cultural and environmental justice by helping them use media and communication technologies to inform, organize, mobilize and further their struggles to create a better world.